Lithuania, together with 37 OSCE participating states, invokes Vienna mechanism on human rights in Georgia

On 20 December, Lithuania, together with 37 other participating states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), invoked the Vienna mechanism in response to law enforcement and informal groups’ violence against protesters, media representatives and opposition figures in Georgia, the Foreign Ministry said in a press release.

The OSCE Vienna Mechanism was invoked due to Georgia’s unsatisfactory response to international calls to respect the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, association, and freedom of expression and release arbitrarily detained Georgian people.

Lithuania stands in solidarity with the people of Georgia and their European aspirations.

The Vienna Mechanism is an OSCE Human dimension tool, allowing a possibility without the need for consensus to request a certain country to provide information and concrete responses regarding the implementation of their OSCE human dimension commitments.

The following OSCE participating states joined the initiative: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America.